According to the company, ARES adds functionality that allows surveillance cameras to capture license plate data. As a vehicle passes in front of a camera, the image is run through PlateSmart's software, which verifies license plate numbers and the state of origin. That information can then be analyzed against a database such as a university-generated watch list. When a match is made, alerts are texted and emailed to a designated group of users in real-time.

The software also maintains a database of license plate data with date and time stamps for later retrieval, a point of contention for privacy advocates. In July 2013, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a report titled, "You Are Being Tracked," stating, "If not properly secured, license plate reader databases open the door to abusive tracking."

To address concerns regarding how long police departments maintain data they collect through license plate reading, the company has included a function that allows institutional or other users to specify how long the data will be stored by the software.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal and Campus Technology. She can be reached at dian@dischaffhauser.com or on Twitter @schaffhauser.